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Real talk with Rece Davis: ESPN analyst on Al Golden, 2014 Hurricanes

To whet your appetite for the season (camp starts Aug. 5), here’s a chat I had this week with ESPN college football studio host and commentator Rece Davis, who I’ve always respected as one of the most knowledgeable and reasonable voices out there. We caught up by phone for 25 minutes while I was in Greensboro, N.C. for the ACC Kickoff. Most of his comments are below. It’s long, but you might find it worth the read.

The bulk of our chat is on Al Golden and what to make of him as a coach entering his fourth year at Miami, but he offers his thoughts on UM’s tough schedule and more.

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Davis

MP: When he was hired he was called one of the hottest young coaches in college football. Four years in what do you make of the job Al Golden has done and the job candidate that he is now?

Rece Davis: “Well, first of all I think that nothing has changed in terms of my regard for Al as being one of the brightest young coaches in college football. I always go back to this, because of what I feel like is my understanding of the history of the game: He won at Temple.”

MP: [laughs]

RD: “He won at Temple.

“And that’s really all you have to say about whether the guy understands how to build a program and to win games. Now, he encountered circumstances at Miami that were not of his doing that made it extraordinarily difficult to do things as quickly as he would have liked or certainly as Miami fans would have liked, and I understand that. There have been some low points. They way the ended last year getting beat in the bowl game was a low point.

“But I think with the controversy with the NCAA being removed, they continue to make progress in recruiting. I think Miami is going to reach the benefits and dividends of having Al Golden as the head coach. I think he’s still a terrific leader. I respect him a ton for his candor and the way he dealt with the entire NCAA fiasco during his time there. He could have bolted. He didn’t, and I think Miami is on a very solid footing for the future.

“Now, everybody wants the future to be in the fourth year or the fifth year, but I still they have some personnel deficits that they have to deal with in recruiting. Obviously the one that jumps out at you this season is quarterback. It’s funny, I was talking to a friend of mine who is a high school basketball coach and he [said], ‘You show me a great coach with not-so-great players and I’ll show you a coach who’s getting his butt kicked.’

“I mean, coaching is important and you have to have the proper leadership, but when you play in elite leagues in college football, you still have to have the dudes. And Miami’s got some dudes, but they don’t have enough of them. But I still think they’ll have a good season and certainly from Al’s standpoint, nothing has changed in my judgment of Al as one of the top young coaches in college football.”

MP: Of course you’d agree Temple is not exactly Miami in terms of competition on the schedule. I don’t exactly know how to quantify how much of a step up it is, but he hasn’t proven yet —

RD: “I understand what you’re saying and you’re right. The competition is not the same. I get that, but the fact of the matter is, whoever Temple was competing against at the time, Temple wasn’t getting the same level of players, they didn’t have the same type of positive energy in their program or belief that they could win. They hadn’t won a game since he got there.

“So I think the only difference in something like that, in jumping levels, is can you get the same level of athletes. Or, it can be that one thing, or it can be can your personality adapt to the difference in athletes that you get. Because let’s face it, an athlete who goes to the ACC or the SEC or the Pac-12, they’re going to have a little more ego, a little more swag. You’re going to have to deal with it differently than you a group of guys who are thrilled to be getting their chance to play college football.

“At Temple or a Mid-American Conference school or a Sun Belt school, maybe you’d get a lot of guys who are thrilled with their chance. I’m not saying those guys don’t exist in big conferences either, at all. They certainly do. But managing people is a big job of coaching at any level. You have to understand the different circumstances of your players in your program and their backgrounds and so forth.

“Now, are there situations where guys can’t transition from smaller atmospheres to bigger ones? Sure. But I don’t think Al fits in that category. Obviously, the Penn State background and the background he has coming up in his coaching career, I think he understands how to make that transformation. And again, while it hasn’t happened as quickly as he would have liked or Miami would have liked, I believe they’re on the right track and Miami’s got the right guy leading them into the future.”

Al Golden is out from under the cloud of the NCAA investigation. Is he the coach to lead Miami back to championship glory? (Allen Eyestone/The Palm Beach Post)

MP: Looking back on the whole situation, are you surprised he didn’t leave Miami for Penn State?

RD: “I don’t know the particulars of whether the offer was made [note: the Rivals.com websites covering UM and Penn State reported Golden was made an offer, but those reports have been refuted elsewhere]. I will say this: if it was made, and he had a decision to make, then yes, I would be surprised about that.

“Not only because he played there, but – and this is a criticism that Miami has heard many times over the years, though it hasn’t stopped them from being successful – the atmosphere on game day at Miami for most games, Florida State’s obviously an exception, if they play Florida that’s an exception, but the atmosphere is not the same thing at Penn State and places like that.

“That type of thing can be very attractive to a coach, it can be very attractive to a player, it helps some of the other schools in recruiting. That’s a drawback. That’s something that Miami has faced for a number of years. If, or until, or if something changes in that regard, whether it’s a difference in stadium location, a difference in marketing, a difference in ability to fill the stands for every game, it’s something they’re going to have to continue to have to deal with.

“I’m not going to sit here and tell you I know the books inside and out in Miami, but I imagine there are a number of programs across the country where revenue is not the same as it is in Miami … I think there are a number of things that will be a challenge to Miami, if Al has great success, that will make it a challenge for Miami to keep him in place. But obviously they’ve already passed that one challenge by keeping him from going to his alma mater, however that worked out.”

MP: It always seems that is the one job that if it’s open, he’ll listen. When you look at the big-conference programs, are there any programs Al fits at, if things don’t go well this year?

RD: “It’s hard to speculate. I don’t want to name any names or anything like that because I don’t think that’s fair before the season starts. We’ve seen how quickly things can turn around.

“But I’ll put it this way: If I were looking for a coach at a program that needed a jolt of energy, needed a guy who conveyed great leadership, and needed a guy I felt like would run my program with integrity and right way and get me to a level to compete for championships, I would certainly consider Al Golden. I’ll put it that way. In that regard, it will always be a challenge for Miami to do the things necessary to keep him. But to maintain that type of attractiveness, for Al, he’s going to have to win.

“There are a lot of really good coaches who got caught in circumstances where it didn’t work out, and they’ve had a hard time keeping that luster around them and making them continually attractive coaches as jobs come open. Athletic directors want to win the press conference, and guys who finish a few games sub-.500 here and there, particularly at a program like Miami where it’s perceived that they have a lot of inherent advantages in recruiting in terms of the talent pool in their backyard, those types of things, he’s going to have to win big.

“It’s sort of a double-edged sword: Miami wants to win big, but the more he wins, the more difficult it’s going to be to fight off the suitors.”

MP: Those qualities you described, that looks like a pretty good head coaching candidate.

RD: “Now look, if you’re talking about … it depends. If he wins 11 games this year – let’s just use a vacancy we had last year, for instance, with his current record, I’d say it’s hard for Texas to hire him. I’ll be honest about that. It’d be hard for a perennial, big-time juggernaut, with his record, to hire him. It would take a strong, secure athletic director who really believed in a coach with Al’s record to hire him at a place like that.

“But you go through … maybe either a program who was once a power but has fallen on hard times, or maybe a program that has been hanging in the middle a number of years, even with his record right now he’d be a great candidate. You give him a couple of 10-, 11-win seasons at Miami over the next couple of years, then it’s easy for the Texases of the world, the USCs of the world to make a pitch at a guy like Al, I think.”

MP: I think as a team, Miami will be better this year than last. But given their schedule, they might have a worse record. They have road games at Louisville and Nebraska early … in September, they have five games in 27 days. They could get beat up pretty quickly, and that’s before playing Virginia Tech on the road Oct. 23 and FSU in November. So, what would an eight-win season do for Miami and Al’s profile?

RD: “I agree with you, I look at the schedule and – I actually have a couple of their games the opening night, Labor Day game against Louisville and the Virginia Tech game – and it is daunting, some of the other games that don’t jump off the page at you, Duke at home is not going to be easy, Georgia Tech will be tough. So, they could be better and not have a better record.

“There’s the huge issue at quarterback. You don’t know if Ryan Williams is coming back, and Jake Heaps was highly rated, as was [Kevin] Olsen, and [Heaps] hasn’t been on good teams, I understand that, but his numbers haven’t been great. You don’t know if one of those guys will play well.

“The thing the last few years, when you look at how the game’s being played and you think we’re talking too much about the quarterback, let’s talk a little more about the quarterback. If you don’t have one, it’s tough to be a really outstanding team. In tight games like the ones you mentioned, in more times than not, unless you’re totally overwhelming them in other areas, you need your quarterback to make a play for you. At the very least, he has to get you in the right situation. With the exception of the experience Heaps has, they don’t have anyone with a lot of experience doing either of those things, so I think that could make it difficult.

“If it is a seven- or eight-win season because of the schedule, then some of the external noise is going to turn up. … But probably the good news is the administration understands where Al is with his team and its development, the toll that the NCAA investigation took, and that it might be a year or two before you reap those 10-win season, playoff-contention type of benefits from his program. I do believe that externally, at least among the social media fans and noise, look. If they slip back this year. There will be some chatter. It would be naïve and sugarcoating it to say otherwise.”

MP: Al talks a lot about shutting out the noise. Coach-speak or not, he knows it’s certainly always going to be there in Miami, and definitely this year.

RD: “The other thing too, that first game is going to be really important for them. They’ve facing a Louisville team in transition as well, after getting handed it to them in the bowl game last year. Certainly if you win it, but if you play really well on the road, with a new quarterback and the issues Miami has at that position, then maybe that can get positive momentum, a little positive energy going.

“If you come out of that September stretch at 4-1, maybe if you just drop one of them against Louisville, Nebraska, Duke, then that’s really, really good. If you come out 3-2, then it probably depends on how you play. If you lose all three of them – obviously no one’s expecting them to lose to Florida A&M or Arkansas State – if you lose all of them, reigniting the energy and the positive energy will be a bit of a task for sure.”